Review: Paul Gilbert - Get Out Of My Yard

Guitar geeks like myself have been longing for an instrumental album from Paul Gilbert for a long time. He's recorded instrumentals before; on Racer X albums, his solo albums, and some side projects. But he's finally released a full length, all-instrumental guitar album, and it's well worth the wait.

"Get Out Of My Yard" features a diverse set of songs. I expected most of the songs to be very heavy, along the lines of the instrumentals featured on past Racer X albums. That's not really the case. There's certainly some metal here, no question. But even the heavier stuff is very tuneful. "The Curse Of Castle Dragon" and the title track are maybe the only songs I could see being on a Racer X album. The title track, by the way, is one-and-a-half minutes of pure shred with just some bass in the background. The opening sequence is unreal.

The disc mainly consists of what I would term "heavy instrumental rock", but there's a few twists thrown in. Overall, the writing has a '70's influence, in my opinion. Some of the riffs and progressions would not sound out of place on an old Pat Travers or Frank Marino album. The common denominator is Gilbert absolutely shreds on nearly every song. It sounds cliche to say he's playing better than ever, but I'll say this - I've been listening to Gilbert since the first Racer X album, and I was surprised by how well he plays here.

I think my favorite tune is "Rusty Old Boat". This is a great funk-influenced tune with a very cool riff (Paul's wife Emi plays organ on this song, and piano on "Marine Layer"). This song is very dynamic, with lots of guitar/organ unison lines. Another great tune is the Robin Trower-esque "Radiator". The '70's influence I mentioned is strong on this one. The main riff is reminiscent in style and tone to the outro from Trowers "Day Of The Eagle". Then a faster riff come in later, before returning to the main riff at the end. Gilbert showers the whole tune with his trademark bluesy shredding. The lone "ballad", for lack of a better word,  is a song called "Marine Layer". This is a real nice acoustic guitar/piano piece.There's a classical influence here, but also a hint of "Behind Blue Eyes".

"The Echo Song" is almost a techno tune. The whole thing is done in delay-effected single note lines. A real departure from the rest of the album, but very cool. There's also an all-electric guitar version of Haydn's "Symphony No. 88 Finale". Emi Gilbert is credited with "Classical Consultation" on this piece, and the result is really something. Gilbert has recorded classic pieces on guitar before, but nothing as dynamic as this.

Another song that needs mentioning is "Three E's For Edward", obviously dedicated to Eddie Van Halen. This is a solo acoustic guitar piece done with only three string's on the guitar, all tuned to E (in octaves). Harmonically, it's very tuneful, but Gilbert also shreds on this tune like you won't believe. Some of the wild intervallic jumps would probably not be possible if the guitar were not tuned as it is. In the liner notes, Gilbert writes a paragraph or two for each song describing the song's inspiration. Some of the descriptions are more abstract and esoteric than others. For "Three E's For Edward", Gilbert writes quite eloquently about Eddie's influence, and his hope that Eddie will find his way to better place so he can show us the beauty of his music and soul once again.

Overall, "Get Out Of My Yard" is a fantastic guitar album, with great writing and chops throughout. Well worth picking up. It has not been released in the US yet, but import versions are already available.

Rich

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See Also:
Paul Gilbert - Get Out Of My Yard Instructional DVD Review

Comments

[John Hunter]

Great review of an awesome album. I'm not convinced though that the guitar on 'Echo Song' has any delay effect. I can't tell! I think Paul's dynamic picking ability may be making it sound as if there is an effect there. Discuss? Truly inspirational.

[Rich]

Thanks John. I'm pretty sure there's a delay used on The Echo Song. It reminds me a lot of Van Halen's "Cathedral".

[Glyn (Zaphod) Evans]

First off, excellent review! Second, excellent album!

I also think there is delay on the song. Sounds very good. That Three E's for Edward song is awesome. Also really dig the Hyden Symphony, though the whole album is mind numbing.

[Rich]

Thanks Glyn. This really is a cool album. "Marine Layer" is really growing on me. The more I listen to it, the more I like it. I read online somewhere that he uses an alternate tuning on "Get Out Of My Yard", the way he does on "Three E's For Edward". I just transcribing a lick from "My Teeth Are A Drumset". When I get some time, I'll post it on my Guitar Licks page.

[Super Lee]

This is an awesome album. Three E's for Edward is truly mind blowing. Is it really done with just 3 strings on the guitar? I'm not sure that there aren't 6 strings on there with 3 of them tuned to E. Either way it is forever beyond the talens of someone like me to ever try and play!
Overall this is a fantastic tuneful, sometimes soulful and inspirational collection of tunes, by surely one of the best guitarists of all time.

[Rich]

I think it's just three stings. In the liner notes description for Three E's For Edward, Paul writes "...I put three strings on my acoustic guitar, tune them all to E". I take that to mean there are 3 strings total on the guitar. You can kind of tell when you listen to it also. Those chords all have three notes (like the last chord in the song).

[Glyn (Zaphod) Evans]

Hey I found a video of Paul playing the "Get out of my yard" thing....

http://zaphodsheads.blogspot.com/2006/10/paul-gilbert-get-out-of-my-yard.html

Insanity, I tell you.

[Javier]

The echo song is actually done with "echo", that's why he named it Echo Song, he shows on a japanese video with Marty Friedman how to do the echo effect with single notes as it is done on the echo song, so for those with doubt, doubt no more, it's an effect

[Learn Acoustic Guitar]

He's a super hot Shredder!
He shouldn't sing :-) though

[argan oil]

This is a real nice acoustic guitar/piano piece.There's a classical influence here, but also a hint of "Behind Blue Eyes".

[Antivirus_man]

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[school_dubl]

With the new 2011. Year! Congratulations.